


Step number 1

by omgareyounaked_ewww



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime)
Genre: Science???, Senkuu is smart bub, Taijuu mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omgareyounaked_ewww/pseuds/omgareyounaked_ewww
Summary: Senkuu emerges from a stone shell like a butterfly out of a cocoon- trying to understand what the hell goes on.





	Step number 1

There is something to be said about the way loneliness wears people down.

Senkuu hasn’t felt anything in years. All his senses were stolen from him, and he was plunged into darkness with only himself as a company. Early on, he allowed himself to toy with the idea of death but decided that no, he was still very much alive.

So, he counted the seconds- patiently, at first. Where he once measured his life by the tick-tocking of his heart, now that was replaced by the meter in his head, ever steady and just as easy as breathing. Be patient, Senkuu told himself. After all, there was nothing in this world that couldn’t be defeated with science. And science takes time.

It took 473105674 seconds, or little more than 15 years, for the dull panic to creep in. Of course, it was not the first time he thought these thoughts. Unfailing optimism was more suited to Taiju, while Senkuu was a staunch realist. Obviously, any rescue attempts might be futile, or too late (did he even age, suspended as he was in this empty space?). There might not even be anyone fit to carry out any sort of attempt at helping others- who knew what the world had turned into at this point; did nature slowly reclaim the lands that had been usurped of it? Did humanity somehow hold on to their cockroach-like propensity for survival or was there no one left? The lack of data was truly frustrating.

473105675 seconds. Senkuu once more acknowledged the thoughts, then stored them away in a corner of his mind - not to be forgotten, but certainly not to be dwelled upon obsessively. In this state, even his emotions were dull echoes of themselves. ‘I better not go crazy in here,’ Senkuu griped, then added, ‘that dumb bastard better survive, too’. With a mental equivalent of a gritting one’s teeth, he settled to counting again. 473105676 seconds, he thought doggedly, 473105677.

And time went on and on.

~~~~~

The first sense to return was touch. It came and went, an infernal tapping on the top of his head that at first, he had mistaken for signs of on setting dementia. Senkuu’s brain was always his greatest weapon, and for a long time now, his only weapon, so when it clicked that, in fact, instead of slowly the working parts of his brain, even more, were coming online, Senkuu was hit with excitement so heady, he would’ve gasped if he could.

Even as old neural pathways snapped back to life, and he could experience emotions as sharply as he used to before, Senkuu’s mind was whirring with possibilities. Why was the sense of touch the first to come back? It was the first of five senses developed when humans were nothing more than a miscellaneous ball of cells. A coincidence or correlation? If the hypothesis was correct, then the next sense to come back would be either smell or taste or perhaps both at the same time. How long would that take?

Turns out, not long at all. The initial trickle of sensory input was all that was needed to open the floodgates. In short order, all his other senses slammed into wakefulness. He could feel something brittle on his skin, snapping and falling to pieces, but the feeling was nothing compared to the way air stung the cracks where his skin was exposed, or how the chirping of birds was a sudden, nightmarish cacophony.

Groaning, Senkuu took stock of his body, twitching his toes and fingers, but keeping his eyes firmly closed lest he blinds himself with sensory overload. He could feel that tapping sensation still, more acutely as before, and was now aware of the liquid nature of it, could feel as it dripped down his face and back.

The scent of it burned his nostrils, and it was easy enough to recognize the strong, choking odour of it. Nitric acid. Highly corrosive. With a grunt, Senkuu got his arms under him and shifted just enough so that the drops didn’t fall on his body anymore, splashing harmlessly on the ground instead. The little splashing sound of it ricocheted off the walls of wherever it was that he found himself, and settled into his skull, adding yet another dimension to his building migraine. He stubbornly latched onto it, and let the rhythm of it sooth him, and counted the seconds again until he felt steady enough to tentatively open his eyes.

Senkuu swept an analytical gaze over his surroundings, cataloguing the bats overhead and the nest of misshapen rocks at his feet. He plucked a piece up and felt the uneven edges with his thumb, staring at the fold of it until it started to make a strange sort of sense. Slowly, he fit the stone behind his bent knee, the junction fitting perfectly down to the minuscule folds of flesh.

Setting aside that piece, Senkuu grabbed another and found that this one fit the junction between his neck and jaw, just beneath his left ear. Yet another slid perfectly onto the tip of his nose, and by this point, Senkuu was forced to believe the reality that was being presented to him. Those damn sparrows, he remembered now.

He leaned back and forced himself to draw in deep, measured breaths, as his mind was assaulted by a typhoon of protests and half-formed theories. Tapping his knee with his index finger to distract himself from what was shaping up to be the migraine of a lifetime, Senkuu absently noted the ease of movement. His thoughts latched on and he had a short, but furious debate with himself as to why there was no muscle atrophy in millennia of inactivity. Did this point to some sort of advanced homeostasis? If so, then surely it must’ve been highly selective - after all, while he couldn’t move or sense anything, suggesting deactivation of certain neural pathways, other parts of his brain, mainly the frontal lobe, were active since he was able to think during this time. But then again, that required immense amounts of energy. That there were no signs of fat loss, let alone muscle loss, was unimaginable.

Senkuu very carefully did not think about how impossible his circumstances were. Highly improbable maybe, but certainly explainable. He wasn’t living in some trashy ya novel, this definitely wasn’t magic. Every seemingly miraculous feat could be torn apart by science, he was a billion percent sure of it. He just lacked the necessary data to do so at the moment. Which was a predicament he had no intention of leaving well enough alone. First though, he would need to take stock of his surroundings and forage for food and clean source of water. Survival was a priority, his search for answers would have to wait.

Snorting derisively, Senkuu gingerly rose to his feet and stumbled outside. His crusty, earthen shell could hold him no longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Senkuu is such an annoying smartass at times. I absolutely adore him.
> 
> (also why did they spell his name with two u-s? One was enough.)
> 
> Please tell me what you thought!


End file.
